image

a physical likeness or representation of a person, animal, or thing, photographed, painted, sculptured, or otherwise made visible.

2.

an optical counterpart or appearance of an object, as is produced by reflection from a mirror, refraction by a lens, or the passage of luminous rays through a small aperture and their reception on a surface.

3.

a mental representation; idea; conception.

4.

Psychology. a mental representation of something previously perceived, in the absence of the original stimulus.

5.

form; appearance; semblance:

We are all created in God's image.

6.

counterpart; copy:

That child is the image of his mother.

7.

a symbol; emblem.

8.

the general or public perception of a company, public figure, etc., especially as achieved by careful calculation aimed at creating widespread goodwill.

9.

a type; embodiment:

Red-faced and angry, he was the image of frustration.

10.

a description of something in speech or writing:

Keats created some of the most beautiful images in the language.

11.

Rhetoric. a figure of speech, especially a metaphor or a simile.

12.

an idol or representation of a deity:

They knelt down before graven images.

13.

Mathematics. the point or set of points in the range corresponding to a designated point in the domain of a given function.

1, 12. Image,icon,idol refer to material representations of persons or things. An image is a representation as in a statue or effigy, and is sometimes regarded as an object of worship: to set up an image of Apollo; an image of a saint. An icon, in the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church, is a representation of Christ, an angel, or a saint, in painting, relief, mosaic, or the like: At least two icons are found in each church. An idol is an image, statue, or the like representing a deity and worshiped as such: a wooden idol; The heathen worship idols. It may be used figuratively: to make an idol of wealth.2. likeness, figure, representation. 3. notion. 6. facsimile.

Meaning "reflection in a mirror" is early 14c. The mental sense was in Latin, and appears in English late 14c. Sense of "public impression" is attested in isolated cases from 1908 but not in common use until its rise in the jargon of advertising and public relations, c.1958.

v.

late 14c., "to form a mental picture," from Old French imagier, from image (see image (n.)). Related: Imaged; imaging.

1. Data representing a two-dimensional scene. A digital image is composed of pixels arranged in a rectangular array with a certain height and width. Each pixel may consist of one or more bits of information, representing the brightness of the image at that point and possibly including colour information encoded as RGB triples. Images are usually taken from the real world via a digital camera, frame grabber, or scanner; or they may be generated by computer, e.g. by ray tracing software. See also image formats, image processing. (1994-10-21) 2. The image (or range) of a function is the set of values obtained by applying the function to all elements of its domain. So, if f : D -> C then the set f(D) = \ f(d) | d in D \ is the image of D under f. The image is a subset of C, the codomain. (2000-01-19)